ELECTRONIC FORUMS AND REPOSITORIES FOR THE CLASSICS (4)

In the first 3 issues of Electronic Antiquity I gave a number of electronic forums and the like; since then others have been brought to my attention, and, given that we are attracting new readers all the time, it seems best to repeat (and revise) the information and integrate new material in an attempt to compile as thorough a 'list' as possible.

If anyone has information on other groups and lists petinent to Classics and Ancient History, please let one or both of the editors know at e-mail: antiquity-editor@classics.utas.edu.au.

LATIN AND GREEK TEXTS: A large collection can be read through gopher or FTPeed from the CCT at Georgetown. Address: guvax.georgetown.edu. The directory is:
cpet_projects_in_electronic_text. The latest editions of the Chronicle of Higher Education may also be read through the same gopher address.

Caesar's De Bello Gallico, Livy's Ab urbe condita I, and Vergil's Aeneid, Eclogues and Georgics: can be found on the path: On-Line Library/Classics/Latin Texts for all except Vergil, and On-Line Library/Classics/Vergil for Vergil.

They are also available by FTP from wiretap.area.com and reside in the following directories: /Library/Classic/Latin & /Library/Classic /Vergil.

Although the above texts claim to be Text files, they seem to include little Tex formatting that could not be removed by a simple editor (usually a header and then /chap & /sec inserted at various points). Beware of books II-III of Caesar's De Bello, these are raw from the scanner and so are unedited with many ^s.

The Oxford Text Archive is a facility provided by Oxford University Computing Services. It has no connexion with Oxford University Press or any other commercial organisation and exists to serve the interests of the academic community by providing archival and dissemination facilities for electronic texts at low cost.

The Archive offers scholars long term storage and maintenance of their electronic texts free of charge. It manages non-commercial distribution of electronic texts and information about them on behalf of its depositors.

WHAT TEXTS DOES IT CONTAIN?

The Archive contains electronic versions of literary works by many major authors in Greek, Latin, English and a dozen or more other languages. It contains collections and corpora of unpublished materials prepared by field workers in linguistics. It contains electronic versions of some standard reference works. It has copies of texts and corpora prepared by individual scholars and major research projects worldwide. The total size of the Archive exceeds a gigabyte and there are about a thousand titles in its catalogue.

WHERE CAN I GET A CATALOGUE?

The Catalogue is available in paper form by post from the address below. New editions are published at least twice a year. It is also available in electronic form, either as a formatted file for display at a terminal or in a tagged form using SGML. These files are available from a number of different places under various names:

(1) on the Oxford VAX Cluster as
OX$DOC:TEXTARCHIVE.LIST
and OX$DOC:TEXTARCHIVE.SGML

(2) from various ListServers, e.g. LISTSERV@BROWNVM (send the mail message GET HUMANIST FILELIST for details)

(3) by anonymous FTP from Internet site sable.ox.ac.uk (129.67.1.165) in the directory /ota

Because the texts come from so many different sources, they are held in many different formats. The texts also vary greatly in their accuracy and the features which have been encoded. Some have been proof read to a high standard, while others may have come straight from an optical scanner, Some have been extensively tagged with special purpose analytic codes, and others simply designed to mimic the appearance of the printed source. The Archive does not require texts to conform to any standard of formatting or accuracy.

HOW USABLE ARE THE TEXTS?

Most of the texts can be used with commonly available text indexing and concordancing software, or can easily be converted for that purpose. All texts are held as `plain ASCII' files on magnetic tape, with no special formatting codes. Documentation of the coding s cheme used in each text is supplied with it, wherever possible.

WHAT ABOUT COPYRIGHT?

Many of the texts in the Archive are subject to some form of copyright restriction. The Archive's obligations to its depositors generally restrict use of the texts to private study and research. In some cases, depositors have also authorised use of the texts in teaching. In all cases, users of the texts must agree not to use the texts commercially and not to redistribute copies of them without consultation.

HOW DO I ACCESS THE TEXTS?

If you are a registered user of Oxford University Computing Services (i.e. you have an account on OXFORD.VAX or black), just send an e-mail message to the username ARCHIVE (on either machine) specifying which texts you want to use and for what purpose.

If you are not a registered OUCS user, you can access only texts in categories P, U and A as described further below.

P category texts are in the public domain. No formality is needed for these texts. They can be downloaded directly by anonymous FTP, from sable.ox.ac.uk or from other sites offering this facility. At present, very few texts are in this category; subject to agreement with our depositors we hope to increase the number greatly in the future.

U and A texts are usually distributed on magnetic tape or cartridge, though smaller texts can be sent on diskette. We will also send copies to you via the network, if you send us the required information (i.e. a secure account-name and password), provided that this can be done with reasonable success. Where copies are made on disk or tape, we make a small distribution charge to cover media and postage which must be paid in advance.

WHAT DO THE CODES IN THE CATALOGUE MEAN?

Each title in the list is preceded by a code made of of a single letter indicating the availability of the text (U, A, P, or X), in some cases followed by a star, a number identifying the text and another single letter which gives some idea of the size of the text.

Availability codes:

X Available only to registered OUCS users. May not be copied
U Freely available for scholarly use in private research.
U* Freely available for scholarly use in private research and also for teaching purposes.
A Available for scholarly use, but only with written authorisation from the depositor.
P Public domain text. Available without formality to anyone.

Depending on format, a standard 600 foot magnetic tape will hold up to 50 texts of size category A. Most texts of size code A will fit on a standard double density floppy diskette; any text of size code A or B will fit on a standard high density diskette.

WHAT DO I DO TO ORDER A COPY OF A TEXT?

Texts with availability code P may be downloaded directly, either from our anonymous FTP server at sable.ox.ac.uk [129.67.1.165] or from other FTP servers on the InterNet. For more information on using FTP, please contact your local computing service.

For all other texts, you must complete and return the proforma. For texts with availability code U, the only authorisation needed is your signature on the Order Form. For A category texts, you must also provide written authorisation from the depositor of the text; you s hould therefore ask us for depositor details before ordering. All orders must be prepaid to the account of Oxford University Computing Service, in sterling or in US dollars. We cannot issue invoices, and any orders which are not prepaid or not submitted on the standard order form will be ignored.

THE OXFORD TEXT ARCHIVE IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE

*a new Short List of titles held at Oxford* 40 titles now available in TEI format for anonymous FTP * a new FTP service for licensed access via the Internet

It's been a long time since we posted any news of our activities to this or other lists. It's not that we've been inactive -- quite the opposite in fact.

We have been converting texts to a standard TEI-compatible mark up (with much appreciated help from Jeffrey Triggs at Bellcore, and John Price-Wilkin at Virginia).

We have been experimenting with ways of saving time and money by uusing FTP, Gopher, WWW etc to deliver material rather than tapes and disks

We have been scouring the networks for new material of all kinds

We have been trying to find some additional and reliable sources of ffunding, but cannot report much progress. Any philanthropists out there, please form an orderly queue.

***** NEW ACCESSIONS ******

Our latest catalogue lists 1336 titles, in 28 languages. We have about 1.2 Gb of textual data, most of it freely available, some of it restricted in one way or another. We want more. We're particularly interested in scholarly minority-interest material which is not going to turn up on CD-anything in the foreseeable future. We don't charge fees to look after your material, and we keep track of what happens to it. We do our best to make sure that whatever texts you deposit with us are rendered as future-proof as we can make them but we don't change the information you recorded. We're archivists, not evangelists, for electronic text.

At the same time, now that some kind of standardization is at last beginning to appear, we're eager to show that old wine can be put into new bottles. So you'll find that quite a few texts are now available in more than one form -- both the original, and a "TEI- compatible" form. (When the original form is easily available elsewhere, and particularly when the TEI form has more information in it, then we may well drop the former from the catalogue. But don't worry: it's still in the Archive....)

*********** NEW FTP SERVICES *************

Our ftp address is: ota.ox.ac.uk. You can log on as anonymous, quoting your e-mail address as a password.

You can also download from the above address:

ota/textarchive.list our current catalogue ota/textarchive.info information file + order form

There are two classes of texts available from this FTP server

(a) texts which are in TEI format and which we can make freely aavailable (these all appear as category P texts in the shortlist)

(b) texts which are available only under our standard conditions of uuse, (these all appear as category U or A in the shortlist)

[Just to confuse the issue, there are also texts which appear as category P texts in the Shortlist, because they are freely available, but which we have not yet checked or converted for TEI compatibility, and which are therefore not available from our FTP server, though you may well be able to get them from someone else's. We will distribute them in the same way as (b) class texts if you insist.]

A CLASS TEXTS (Freely Available)

You can just download these without formality using standard FTP commands. In some cases there are additional usage constraints, specified in the TEI header. We also hope that you won't redistribute these texts in a mutilated state or without acknowledgment of where you got them from. We can't enforce any of these things, obviously. We think that the Internet is successful because -- and as long as -- people trust each other.

To see what (a) class texts are available now, just take a look in the directory ota. It's arranged, like the ShortList, by language, and within that by Author. There are x texts in there today, and there will be more. Each text has a conformant TEI header, and each text is a legal TEI compatible document, using a special document type definition (dtd), which you can also download from the same directory (look in ota/TEI). Eventually, there'll be some more introductory stuff on what SGML is, why the TEI is a Good Thing etc etc. Just now, we're working flat out getting the texts in there.

The majority of texts in the Archive are and always have been held in trust for a Depositor. Rather than keep track of a zillion different contracts with each Depositor, we worked out a single contract which is the basis of our standard user declaration form. It has served to keep us out of the law courts for the last twenty five years, so it can't have been all bad.

Because it's a contract, we have to have a signed paper copy of the declaration in our hands before we can issue copies of the texts. Once we have that declaration, we can send you copies of restricted texts, on diskette, cartridge or magnetic tape, or even over the network.

Up till this week, the only way you could get copies of (b) class texts over the network was to tell us an account and password on y our machine. We would then bash the files across to you, for free. This was a rather unsatisfactory procedure in several ways: we think we now have a better one. It's still free and it works like this:

you send us a signed order form, as usual - on the order form you specify the password of your choice - we place copies of the files you ordered in a special directory under ota, aaccess to which requires you to quote both a personal identifier (which we will give you) and the password (which you have told us) - we send you e- mail giving details of how to access the directory - you download copies of the files you ordered, using conventional ftp ccommands.

after a fixed period of time (usually about a week) your personal iidentifier is removed and the file copies deleted

**********THE DOWN SIDE************

We save until the very end of this note the inevitable piece of bad news. After 25 years, we've been told very firmly that we have to increase our prices to something a bit nearer a realistic level. Not only that, but within the European Community we must charge VAT at 17.5% on every order. We've taken this opportunity to rethink the way in which we charge slightly.

We charge only for material costs, postage and packing on orders for texts sent on magnetic media of various kinds. We have abolished the "per text" fee, and we are no longer insisting on payment in advance. We are still charging over the odds for diskettes because they take us a disproportionate amount of effort to produce.

BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW (BMCR reviews books on Greek and Latin literature and Greek and Roman history, and has occasional notices (e.g. about conferences). To subscribe, write to:listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu
put nothing on subject line,then as a message:
subscribe BMCR-L your name

BRYN MAWR MEDIAEVAL REVIEW (BMMR), also of relevance to Classicists:

BMMR will publish timely reviews of current work in all areas of medieval studies, a field it will interpret as broadly as possible (chronologically, geographically, culturally, etc.). We are eager to develop a large and diverse stable of reviewers and to offer broad coverage of interesting current work from all over the world. To that end, we will be assisted by a distinguished editorial advisory board, who will themselves review for us and help us find additional reviewers; but expressions of interest from potential reviewers and of course from authors and publishers wishing to submit review copies will be welcomed by any of the editors listed above.

There will be no paper BMMR. Reviews will ship serially as they are ready. Once a month, a 'masthead' file will remind readers of the makeup of the editorial staff and contain concise instructions for subscribing, unsubscribing, back issues, and the like. (Back issues will be available by ftp and gopher [with WAIS indexing to facilitate searching] through the University of Virginia's library e- text service, as is already the case for BMCR.) There will also be a 'Books Received' file shipped monthly, with notes by books still unplaced for review -- to encourage qualified readers to volunteer.

There will also be opportunity for author's replies, discussion of earlier reviews, and well-conceived columns of opinion on the current medieval scholarly scene. At the editors' discretion, other informational material (e.g., conference announcements) may also be included.

TO SUBSCRIBE to BMMR alone:
Send mail message to:listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu
with nothing on the subject line and the single message line:
SUBSCRIBE BMMR-L Your Name

TO SUBSCRIBE TO BMMRandBMCR (new subscribers): Send mail message to:listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu
with nothing on
the subject line and the single message line:
SUBSCRIBE BMR-L Your Name

SPECIAL FOR current BMCR SUBSCRIBERS:
If you wish to subscribe to both, go ahead and send the message to:listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu for BMR-L just described, but add a second line:
UNSUB BMCR-L.
If you are told you can't unsubscribe, please refer the error message to jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu -- this will happen most often to people who subscribed to BMCR some time ago from Bitnet addresses.

ARETHUSA and TAPhA are producing electronic preprints in advance of the appearance of the 'hard copy' journals.

ARETHUSA:

index and abstracts of forthcoming articles are available as follows:

via gopher:

Enter "gopher jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu" from your mainframe account. A menu will appear thatlists various items, such as "Eisenhower Library" and "Psychology Department". Navigate to the "University Press" directory (item 7), then press the return or enter key and you'll go to a menu that includes "Johns Hopkins University Press Journals" (item 2). Navigate to this item, press return/enter, and a list of subdirectories will appear. Item 4 is "Classics Journals -- JHU Press". The Arethusa files are within.

via ftp

Enter "ftp jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu" from your mainframe account. You'll be prompted by the line "USER (identify yourself to the host)" and should enter "anonymous" in response. You'll then be prompted for a password. Enter your user id (not your real password) and press return/enter. At the subsequent "Command:"prompt, enter "cd JHU_Press/.zjournals/.class" (".class" is the classics journals directory). Then enter "dir" and the names of the files will appear. The names of the Arethusa files are "jcare-f" (for abstracts of forthcoming articles) and "jcare-i" (for index alphabetized by author).

Romani numen soli: Faunus in Ovid's Fasti
by
Hugh C. Parker
University of North Carolina at Greensboro

This article is available in all-ASCII version from the ccat.sas.upenn.edu server, either by anonymous ftp (directory: /pub/TAPA) or by gopher (if you use the ccat gopher, the TAPA menu item may be found under "Electronic Publications"), but if you have "veronica" on a gopher near you, simply searching for the string TAPA will get you there. There will be additional articles shortly.

Perjury and the Unsworth Oath,
on Homer and the Homeric hymns,
by Cathy Callawya
University of Missouri at Columbia,

This article is now available by anonymous ftp (directory: /pub/TAPA) and by gopher (directory: /Library/Journals, Newsletters and Publications/TAPA) from the server ccat.sas.upenn.edu.

For the time being, we are reluctantly using TLG Beta transcription for Greek, and this will be a nuisance in some pieces, moreso than in BMCR. I hope within the next year to have an alternative that brings Greek to you more expeditiously.

Johns Hopkins University Press reports that several journals (including AJPh) may also be obtained electronically; for information contact Susan Lewis: suelewis@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu

The table of contents for many Classics journals can also be called up electronically via the mighty TOCS-IN list. The following extracted details have appeared elsewhere:

TOCS-IN: Tables of Contents of Interest to Classicists
Bob Kallet-Marx and Philippa Matheson

TOCS-IN, the project to put on-line current tables of contents of interest to Classicists, has now been in operation for a year. [To receive a brief description of the project, read our informational file, available by gopher or ftp: (3) or (4) below.] We are slowly but steadily increasing the number of journals we can cover: We now have tables of contents of 88 journals for 1992 (2102 articles), and our 1993 files are growing apace (599 articles from 49 journals). We must stress, however, that our hopes to improve coverage are still dependent almost entirely on volunteer help. A subsequent message will list the journals which we would like to cover if people are willing to take on the small burden of entering the TOCs of 1 or 2 annually and sending them on to Bob Kallet-Marx (RKALLET@HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU or @HUMANITAS.BITNET). One of the virtues of TOCS-IN is speed (relative, of course), and certainly this would be especially well served if someone at the publishing end of some of the desiderated journals would kindly send us TOCs around the time of publication.

Here is a reminder of how to obtain the TOCS-IN files by ftp. In the file 'inform.toc' is a brief description of the project and the structure of the files.

If you have an internet address and can use interactive ftp, give the command 'ftp epas.utoronto.ca.' Then during the login process give 'anonymous' for your user name, and your full e- mail address as the password. Then give the following commands:
fftp> cd pub/tocs-in
ftp> dir
ftp> get inform.toc
ftp> quit

If you have a BITNET or EARN address, the Princeton bitnet ftp server will do it for you. The data will be sent to you in the form of e-mail messages. Send a mail message to BITFTP@PUCC, with no subject and no signature, containing these commands, each on a separate line.
FFTP epas.utoronto.ca NETDATA
USER anonymous
CD pub/tocs-in
DIR
GET inform.toc
QUIT

The 'dir' command produces a list of the files available and the 'get inform.toc' command will get you a file with a list of the journals available and the most recent issue of each in the archive. When you know which files you want, omit the 'dir' command from the instruc- tions above, and change the 'get' command to get the files you want. E.g., 'get cla92-1.toc cla92-2.toc arch92- 4.toc rlne92-2.toc' You can have more than one get command in each session/message, or use 'mget' to specify multiple files: e.g., 'mget *.toc' or 'mget cla*.toc'.

Note: ftp can do various translations of the data from one machine tto another. To find out about the available ftp commands: on internet type the single word 'ftp' as a command and type '?' at the ftp> prompt; on bitnet, send a message to BITFTP@PUCC with the single word 'HELP' in it, and you will be sent a list of the available commands and what they do.

A very convenient menu for Gophering TOCS-IN has been set up at the U. of Pennsylvania, thanks to J. O'Donnell:

Aim your gopher at 'ccat.sas.upenn.edu' (on some mainframes you can type 'gopher ccat.sas.upenn.edu' at the command line) and choose '8.' from the first menu ('Electronic Publications and Resources'), then '10.' ('Journals in Classics'). [Note that on the second screen you will also find the Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2.), articles from the upcoming issue of TAPA (19.), and also lots of other material of interest to humanists.]

Once you have chosen '10. Journals in Classics', you will be offered '1. info.toc' (which allows you to browse inform.toc), and '2. tocs-in/' the directory on epas.utoronto.ca, where all the toc files are stored. Choose 2., and browse any file (by selecting the file and typing return) or use any of the other functions available in your gopher program. These may include downloading (on some gophers, type 'D', then choose the method of transmission, e.g., kermit, from the dialog box, and finally set your PC to receive when prompted), saving the file to your mainframe account (type 's'), or sending the file to yourself by e-mail (view it, quit, and type 'm').

It is now possible to do WAIS searches of the contents of the TOCS-IN project's listing of tables of contents of current classics journals. If you wish to add TOCS-IN to your own gopher, here is what you need to know:

But you can also gopher directly to the gopher.lib.Virginia.EDU and look under item 13 on their main menu; and as of Monday, 27 September, 1993, you will find the same results on the ccat.sas.upenn.edu gopher under menu item 9. A little experimentation should show you the value of this searching tool.

* Classics Bulletin Board:
carries views and requests for information pertinent to most areas of studies; oriented more for students than the CLASSICS-L discussion group.
To access, call through usenet:sci.classics

* Ancient History Discussion Group:
carries news, views, and requests for information pertinent to the history of the Mediterranean. To subscribe, write to:listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe ANCIEN-L your name

* The Archaeological Institute of America: maintains an e-mail list on Internet. The list is open to all, whether members of the AIA or not. The list is open for discussion of any topic but is especially intended to foster discussion of technological issues among professionals. It is a moderated list; the moderator is Harrison Eiteljorg II. To sign up for the AIA list, please send a message to:Listserv@brynmawr.edu
There should be only one line:
subscribe AIA-L your full name (no quotes)

* Latin and Neo-Latin Discussion Group:
appears at present infrequently and sometimes in Latin. To subscribe, write to:listserver@psuvm.psu.edu
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe LATIN-L your name

* Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc. This is a particularly lively and interesting discussion group and covers most areas of Medieval studies. To subscribe, write to:listserver@uiucvmd.bitnet
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe MEDTEXTL your name

* Rare Books and Special Collection Forum: we've not seen this discussion group. To subscribe, write to:listserver@rutvm1.bitnet
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe EXLIBRIS your name

* ETEXTCTR@RUTVM1 (new discussion list)

At the first Humanities Computing Summer Seminar, organized by the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities in August 1992, the librarian participants suggested that there be some way for participants and other librarians actively developing electronic text centers to come together and share their experiences so that all could benefit and expand their expertise. As a result of this suggestion, the ALA ACRL Discussion Group on Electronic Text Centers was established in January 1993, with Marianne Gaunt (Associate University Librarian at Rutgers University) as its Chair. At the first meeting of this group, in June 1993 in New Orleans, a suggestion was made and accepted to take this further and set up an electronic discussion list for electronic text centers.

This list has now been established. Its name is ETEXTCTR (Discussion Group on Electronic Text Centers), and will be administered from the listserv at Rutgers University, listserv@rutvm1 or listserv@rutvm1.rutgers.edu. It is a moderated list, meant to cover broad issues: budgets, acquisitions, cataloging, public services, management, training and staff development, etc. but to be focused initially on full-text files that are primarily monographic in nature rather than e-journals or numeric data files.

If you would like to join in with this discussion, or would like to learn from the discussion among others, please subscribe to this list by sending a message to:

Leave the subject line blank, and send as the body of the message the following line:

subscribe etextctr Firstname Lastname

where Firstname is your first name and Lastname is your last name.

The minutes of the first meeting of the ALA ACRL Discussion Group on Electronic Text Centers will be posted to this list shortly. You may respond to these minutes through the list, or post questions, comments or ideas on anything related to the development of electronic text centers. Send your postings to:

If you have any questions about this list, or problems with technicalities, please write to the moderator, Annelies Hoogcarspel, at hoogcarspel@zodiac or hoogcarspel@zodiac.rutgers.edu.

* History of Rhetoric Discussion List:

FORMAT:

H-RHETOR is moderated by Gary Hatch of Brigham Young University (gary_hatch@byu.edu). Posts to the list are collected by the moderator and distributed in digests daily. Announcements of interest and notes from the moderator may be sent as singular messages.

MISSION

H-RHETOR is an international electronic discussion group based at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). H-RHETOR will provide a forum for scholars and teachers of the history of rhetoric, writing, and communication. There are no geographical or chronological boundaries.

Subscription is free; subscribers will automatically receive messages in their computer mailboxes. Messages can be saved, discarded, printed out, duplicated, or relayed to someone else. It's like a newsletter that is free and published daily.

The primary purpose of H-RHETOR is to enable historians to communicate current research and research interests; to discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and tools of analysis; a nd to test new ideas and share comments and tips on teaching. H-RHETOR will have an editor and an editorial board.

H-RHETOR will try to stimulate dialogues in the discipline among historians of rhetoric worldwide. It will publish syllabi, outlines, handouts, bibliographies, guides to termpapers, listings of new sources and archives, and reports on new software, datasets and cd-roms. Subscribers will write in with questions, comments, and reports. H-RHETOR will post announcements of conferences, fellowships, and jobs. We expect many messages at first will be of the "how can I do this with my computer?" variety and also "where can I locate such-and-such?" Please send them in, for someone on the list will be able to help. H-RHETOR will publish paper abstracts, conference reports, and book reviews, but it will not be an electronic journal.

* A number of groups and lists are of interest to philosophers (the following are fairly randomly extracted, and may/may not be of use to classicists, from a longer list kindly sent by Steven Clark of Liverpool University: please contact him for details of others: srlclark@uxb.liv.ac.uk):

*Noble Savages Philosophers Group: seems to be very conversational and argumentative, many members are postgraduate students, not all of philosophy. To subscribe, write to:
listserv@earn.rpitsvm
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe NSP-L your name

* Liverpool Philosophy Group:
discussion and conversation, along with job and conference announcements. To subscribe, write to Steven Clark: srlclark@uxb.liv.ac.uk.

* History and Philosophy of Science:
To subscribe, write to:listserv@ukcc.uky.edu
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe HOPOS-L your name

* Philosophy and Religion:
A group at Harvard seems to be meeting with a favourable press; for information write to:religion@edu.harvard.harvarda

* MERTON-L: ormed for substantive discourse on research and scholary inquiry to create and and develop knowledge about contemplative life. Discourse is encouraged that is consistent with this purpose, such as:

1. Conceptualization of contemplation
2. Alternative futures
3. Review and critique of theory and research
4. Alternative designs and methodologies
5. Findings, conclusions and implications
6. Research in progress on contemplative life
7. Collaborative research by subscribers
8. Setting the research agenda on contemplative life
9. The Merton Research Institute
10. Relevant announcements, events, and issues

Archives of email and other documents are availabe to subscribers.

To subscribe to MERTON-L, send the following command to: LISTSERV@BYRD.MU.WVNET.EDU via email:
SUBSCRIBE MERTON-L your first name your last name

* Sophia:

A list for the discussion of ancient philosophy: the field covered runs (roughly) from Hesiod to Iamblichus, Spain to Palestine.

Questions and preliminary musings are encouraged; moderate manners are required.

* An updated version of Shortlist of groups for Religious Studies as prepared by Michael Fraser of Durham (m.a.fraser@durham.ac.uk) is now available. Point your gopher at: delphi.dur.ac.uk 70
or telnet to delphi.dur.ac.uk [IP address: 129.234.4.7].

The Shortlist is in the path:
Academic Departments/Departments
P-T/Theology/Theology and Computers/E-Mail Discussion Groups

For those who keep gopher bookmarks etc, the required information is as follows:

If anyone cannot access telnet or gopher, then Michael Fraser can still forward the list by email. Subscribers to the Liturgy group will also have access to the updated file from the Liturgy archives. The file in this archive and on gopher will be updated as information is received.

* Ancient Text Analyis Discussion Group:
A forum for the scholarly, informal and polite discussion of the social worlds behind and within the texts of antiquity, including those of the Hebrew bible, early Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism and all the literature associated with the Graeco-Roman world. To subscribe, write to:listserv@acadvm1.uottawa.ca
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe CONTEX-L your name

* 1st Century Judaism and Christianity: A highly active discussion list, with many international scholars amongst its subscribers; particular interests of the list are the works of Flavius Josephus and Philo of Alexandria. To subscribe, write to:listserv@yorkvm1.bitnet
put nothing on subject line, then as a message:
subscribe IOUDAIOS your name

* Papyrology list: This list provides a discussion forum for all interested in papyrology and the history, epigraphy and archaeology of Graeco-Roman Egypt. To subscribe write the following message to: listserv@igl.ku.dk
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To send messages for circulation the address is: papy@igl.ku.dk
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* History of Astronomy:

HASTRO-L (The History of Astronomy Discussion Group) deals with matters arising in research and teaching of the history of astronomy in all cultures, whether Euroamerican, non-Western, or non-literate; all periods, ranging from prehistoric to contemporary; and using all approaches, including social history, the philosophy of science, archeo- or ethno-astronomy, and/or detailed studies of the technicalities of a period's observational or mathematical astronomy. It was established at the request of the History of Astronomy Interest Group at their June '93 meeting at Notre Dame.

Although HASTRO-L primarily serves those who study and teach the history of astronomy, we welcome others with a more general interest in the history of astronomy.

Exactly what the list will become depends on the interests of the members, but I hope it will provide several services including informal communications among the members of the group,announcements of meetings, etc., and the posting of materials such as syllabi, bibliographies, and software that members may find useful. Another possibility is posting papers and/or abstracts before scheduled meetings as a way to improve the quality of discussion at the meeting.

Let me just remind all who read this list that there is also the Perseus list, which is, we hope, like other forms of discussion of Perseus, enjoying a great change in the general shape of discussion: rather than seeking only instructions for establishing the barest functionality of Perseus in their classes, people are writing to suggest and submit class assignments using Perseus, and to offer their own experiences with Perseus as a teaching tool which we at Perseus truly need if we're going to improve it.

So, if you are interested in, use, or have heard of but do not understand Perseus, please read the list and offer your thoughts.

If you have problems with subscribing to the Perseus list, please write me and I will solve them. If you have problems with Perseus itself, please write me and I will exploit them constructively for others, and do my best to offer you some useful advice in return.
Adam McLean Lewisadam@ikaros.harvard.edu

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has prepared a short elementary guide to the Internet called "Big Dummys Guide to the Internet". It is aimed at those with little or no experience in network communications. It can be obtained from them by anonymous FTP at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide/.

An ASCII version is in /pub/EFF/papers/big-dummys-guide.txt.

A Mac hypercard version is in:
/pub/EFF/papers/big-dummys-guide.sit.hqx.

MILLENNIUM 1.20:

In Millennium, Frank Reed has created an elegant and powerful program calculated to captivate historians. It might be well to begin with the main screen that forms the central feature of the program. After a simple loading procedure, one runs MILL, and a map of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East (including Iran and Arabia appears. The definition is excellent, and the colors are strong and well-selected. The combination makes Millennium an excellent candidate for classroom projection. The control buttons and their captions are shaded to give a three-dimensional effect, and the overall appearance is clean and elegant.

The map itself is a bit like the shape-changers that one runs into in fantasy fiction; it can assume any of a number of different identities. One can enter any year and month between A.D. 1000 and 1800, and the map will reform itself to present an accurate reflection of the state of affairs during that year. Or one can choose a given date and set the passage of time in motion, fast or slow, backwards or forwards, and sit back and watch the borders shift as empires wax and wane and great powers come and go.

Or, again, if one wishes, one can click on the question box and choose "What was?" "Where was?" or "Who was?" Each of these selections calls up a lengthy list of significant events, places, or people, arranged either alphabetically or chronologically according to one's preference. After one clicks on a choice, the options present themselves of reading a brief or detailed answer to the question, or being transferred to a large map of the region under discussion. One can choose a region, select two dates, and switch back and forth between the maps for those dates. The instructional advantages of these features are obvious to anyone who has tried to direct students attention from one transparency to the other.

Many will probably find the ability to select the date, drag out the region that is of immediate interest, adjust its coverage by shifting its center point, and then printing it out to be Millennium's most attractive feature. The European historian will never again have to search around for a transparency covering just the right area at the right time. Millennium prints out excellent maps, either outline or dithered, by laser jet printer and, if one is lucky enough to have a color printer available, produces fine color transparencies.

There are shortcomings, of course. The moving map can be maddening to watch. One sees a blip in Russia and, by the time one decides that Ivan III is at work, one has missed Milan gobbling up adjacent city-states. One can add the names of both cities and countries, but the two overlays are not too well coordinated. The country names are too large, and too often lay directly over the name of an important city. From the college teacher's point of view, however, the greatest drawback to Millennium lies in the fact that its terminal dates, A.D. 1000 - 1800, do not correspond to any standard course. Millennium almost covers the middle ages, but not quite, and it lack two centuries of covering modern European history. One would hope that Frank is at work to extend Millennium's coverage and coordinate the captioning a bit better.

These are small objections, however, when compared to Millennium's many useful features and the ease with which it may be used. Frank is to be particularly congratulated on this aspect of the program's design. The operation of the program's features is almost intuitive; where it is not, there are convenient on- screen instructions and, for the person who likes things spelled out, an easily accessible help file on which to click.

Millennium requires 2.44 Mb of disk space and at least 2 Mb of RAM. Although it accommodates keyboard commands, mouse control is by far preferable.

Clockwork Software has made a free demonstration program available to the public. It may be obtained from MALIN (ftp ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu/ login: anonymous/ password: guest/ cd pub/docs/utilities. Please remember that this file must be transferred and downloaded in binary. On FTP, issue the command BINARY before GET; and, if you are using Kermit software, SET FILE TYPE BINARY before GET.

By
Lynn H. Nelson (Department of History, University of Kansas)

H-NET (HISTORY ON LINE) ANNOUNCES THE DEBUT OF H-TEACH, A NEW ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION GROUP SET UP TO PROVIDE A FORUM FOR COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY HISTORIANS TO DISCUSS ISSUES RELATED TO TEACHING.

The primary purpose of H-Teach is to enable historians to easily communicate about teaching approaches, methods, problems, and resources. H-Teach will facilitate discussion on the wide range of policy issues involved in teaching history at the college and university level. H-Teach will be particularly interested in methods of teaching history to graduate and undergraduate students in diverse settings. Special attention will be paid to use of new technologies in and outside of the classroom. H-Teach will also provide a forum for exchange of information about specific teaching tools including texts, videos, exams, and assignments.

H-Teach is edited by Professor Mark Kornbluh of Washington University in St Louis (H-Teach@Artsci.wustl.edu) and has an editorial board broadly representative of the state of scholarship.

H-Teach will publish syllabi, outlines, handouts, bibliographies, guides to termpapers, listings of new sources, library catalogs and archives, and reports on new software, datasets and cd-roms. H-Teach will also post announcements of conferences, fellowships, and jobs. Subscribers will write in with questions, comments, and reports. H-Teach will carry publisher's announcements of new books, and we will commission book reviews.

TO SUBSCRIBE TO H-TEACH:

Subscription is free. Subscribers will automatically receive messges in their computer mailboxes. Messages can be saved, discarded, copied, printed out, or relayed on to someone else.

There are no dues or fees of any kind. Subscribers only need an address on Bitnet or Internet, which is provided to faculty and students by campus computer centers. The consultants there, or your departmental guru, can explain how to send an email message via Bitnet or Internet.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO H-TEACH:

Contributions can be short questions or long documents. Please sign your name and email address to each contribution (we will add the name/address otherwise.) To send them, use one of the following:

(a) Send an email note directly to: H-TEACH@UICVM.

(b) When you read a message from H-Teach, use the reply command (enter REPLY, type a response, and SEND it)

(c) You can send a long document via Bitnet to:
HH-TEACH@UICVM

If you use a word processor like Word Perfect or Microsoft Word, save the document as a plain ascii (or "text" or "dos") file. Upload it to your mainframe (your departmental guru will explain how.) Use the "SENDFILE" command to send it to H-Teach. Please do NOT send binary files or uunencoded Macintosh files, as we have trouble decoding them.

H-Teach will be moderated to filter out extraneous messages (like requests for subscription) and items that don't belong on H-Teach. They may belong somewhere else, or in the moderator's judgment they do not aid the scholarly dialogue. The moderator will not alter anyone's meaning (but will, if necessary, add name and e-address). All contributions to H-Teach will become part of the public domain and can be freely used, printed, copied or retransmitted if credit is given to the original author.

H-TEACH FILESERVER:

Documents of interest--bibliographies, book and article reviews, announcements, teaching materials, and descriptions of tools, techniques, and computer software and hardware, plus the weekly files of messages--will be made available from the H-Teach fileserver. Contributions are welcome, to be sent as files to: H-TEACH@UICVM.

On electronic publishing, two books (discussed in BMCR 4.2.1.) are to be noted:

A. Cummings et al., University Libraries and Scholarly Communication: A Study Prepared for the Mellon Foundation (Washington, Association of Research Libraries: 1992)

Ann Okerson (ed.), Visions and Opportunities in Electronic Publishing: Proceedings of the Second Symposium (Washington, Association of Research Libraries: 1993)

COPYRIGHT NOTE: Copyright remains with authors, but due reference should be made to this journal if any part of the above is later published elsewhere.